Guest Artist

Tengku Ahmad Irfan, piano

Malaysian-born Tengku Irfan has appeared around the world as a pianist, composer, and conductor, and has been praised by The New York Times as “eminently cultured” and possessing “sheer incisiveness and power.” Irfan has performed with orchestras worldwide, and his compositions have been premiered by highly-acclaimed orchestras and ensembles.

Tengku started his piano lessons at age seven and developed an interest in composing shortly after. His major debut performance was at age 11, performing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto in E-flat with the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, where he improvised his own cadenzas for all three movements.

Other performance highlights include the Juilliard Orchestra, AXIOM, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Sao Paulo State Youth Orchestra, Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, Aspen Chamber Symphony, Peoria Symphony Orchestra, MDR Sinfonieorchester, Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra, Lexington Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, and a solo recital at La Virée classique in Montreal, on invitation from Kent Nagano. Tengku also won the Aspen Music Festival Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 2 Competition in 2013 and was resident pianist for the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble for four consecutive years beginning in 2014.

Tengku’s career as a composer has garnered three ASCAP Morton Gould Awards and a Charlotte Bergen Award with performances and premieres by orchestras such as the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Peoria Symphony Orchestra and the MDR Simfonieorchester. His orchestral composition titled Keraian, was premiered by the New York Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall, with Case Scaglione conducting.

Tengku was a double major in piano and composition in the Juilliard Pre-College program (under Yoheved Kaplinsky & Ira Taxin). He currently studies at the Juilliard School as a double major in piano and composition under Yoheved Kaplinsky and Robert Beaser respectively, and also studies conducting with Jeffrey Milarsky and George Stelluto. Tengku served as Teaching Artist Intern for the New York Philharmonic Composer’s Bridge Program and is a proud recipient of the Juilliard School Kovner Fellowship Award.